“Top Gun,” Parks said. “I was born around that age, so I got named after Top Gun the movie. Tommy Cruise.”

The name is fitting for Parks, the Saginaw Spirit’s newest goaltender who has been somewhat of an independent entity during his OHL career.

Parks has been traded four times entering his fourth season. The latest trade brought him from the Barrie Colts to Saginaw in an early August deal that sent draft picks back to the Colts.

In Saginaw, Parks, an overage player, will assume the top goaltender spot from the departed Eddie Pasquale. The Spirit hope his playoff experience — he made the OHL finals last year with Barrie — will come in handy as they look to make their own run deep into the playoffs.

“Any time you can go far in the playoffs is great, and I was fortunate enough to play a lot,” Parks said. “I gained a lot of experience, and a lot of new experiences for me that I learned how to cope with and handle during that playoff stretch. So I think that I can bring that experience here to this team and maybe help in those situations, or give my advice in those situations to see what works and what doesn’t work.”

Parks saw his first action at The Dow Event Center last week as the Spirit held their training camp scrimmages Friday and Saturday. The team opens its exhibition season Friday in Sault Ste. Marie before returning home for a 7:11 p.m. Saturday exhibition against the Greyhounds at The Dow.

After being traded to Barrie from Kitchener midseason last year, Parks split time with Peter DiSalvo throughout the rest of the regular season and through the first round of the playoffs. But when DiSalvo went down with an injury early in the second round, Parks was suddenly the man.

“I got thrown in, and I just took advantage of it,” Parks said. “I was on a good team, which really helped.”

He finished the playoffs with a 7-2-1 record and a 2.33 goals against average. That’s after compiling a 25-5-1 record during the regular season with a 2.34 goals against average, the best in the league.

The Spirit have long been in pursuit of Parks. The team had a deal in place for him at the beginning of last season, but Parks, who has a no-trade clause, opted to stay in Kitchener instead of move to a team that had two other 1990-born goalies.

“I didn’t realize that Saginaw was so strong,” Parks said.

But this year, with Saginaw’s goalie corps more depleted (Pasquale is not in Saginaw for training camp, and the Spirit expect him to stick with a professional team following his NHL training camp with the Atlanta Thrashers), Parks comes into camp as the man. Tadeas Galansky remains on as the backup.

“The weight’s on my shoulders,” Parks said. “I’ve got to go into it and give it my all and leave it out there on the table. Hopefully this team can rely on me a lot, and I can battle for them and get them wins.”

And upon his arrival to Saginaw, Spirit coach Todd Watson told Parks to expect another deep playoff run this season.

“He told me they’re going for it this year,” Parks said. “We have a pretty good squad here, a lot of depth. They’re making a push for this year, they’ve been building up for this year. It’s my last year, I definitely want to have a deep playoff run. I think it should be a good year for us.”

Spirit holding video game launch party

The Saginaw Spirit will be holding a launch party for the release of the NHL 11 video game, which features the Spirit as well as the 59 other teams in the Canadian Hockey League.

The party will be held Tuesday, Sept. 7 from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. at GameStop in Saginaw, 5206 Bay Road. Spirit players will be on hand, along with Jay from WKQZ Z93's Joe and The Poor Boy Morning Show.